Bengals pull one out late in overtime

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on October 4, 2009, 5:05 PM EST

After blowing a 14-point lead and then pulling out a late score and then blowing the extra point, the Bengals still found a way to push their record to 3-1 by knocking out the Browns with a field goal late in overtime.

In a back-and-forth sudden-death fifth quarter nearly as boring as last year’s Eagles-Bengals tie, after which Donovan McNabb revealed a shocking degree of football stupidity by admitting that he didn’t know games could end in ties, the Bengals won via a 31-yard field goal with 0:07 to play. (James Bond says, “They stole my move.”)

The key play on the winning drive came on a 15-yard scramble from body-by-Lego quarterback Carson Palmer on fourth-and-11 with 64 seconds left. The play gave the Bengals a first down at Cleveland’s 26. A 17-yard pass on the next play put the ball in position for the decisive kick.

And so the Bengals head next week to Baltimore for a showdown with the 3-1 Ravens for early-season supremacy in the AFC North.

18 responses to “Bengals pull one out late in overtime”

From the banks of the Ohio comes that orange and black machine
They’re the Cincinnati Bengals The finest ever seen
With stripes upon their helmets and fire in their eyes
They’ll take the field they will not yield
They’re strong and tough and wise
Who Dey.Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Noooooobodyyyyy
PS,Be ready Ravens our win vs the Browns was ugly but it was a win.

Am I the only one who thought that kick looked obviously no good?
I didn’t watch it on TV, maybe they showed an under-the-post angle of it that showed it was in… but the angle from behind the posts in the highlights on http://www.nfl.com definitely gives the impression it was no good. They also haven’t put up the single highlight of the game-winning FG, which I find odd considering they have every other score posted for video.

Something is wrong with Carson’s arm. He can’t throw a fastball to the mid or deep sideline. He can only do so directly to the middle.
Either he is not stepping through or his elbow is worse than reported.

@who_dey_kid,
I couldn’t believe it at first – I didn’t think NFL officials could mess up something so basic. Then again, they did it with that whole bouncing back through thing a few years ago. I think that was the Browns, too.
I took a screenshot of the highlight paused on nfl.com and it definitely looks like the post is blocking out part of the ball (since the angle is from behind the goal posts, that means the ball would be wide). Maybe it’s just an optical illusion.

As much as I would have liked to see the Browns win, at least they looked like a real football team this week. Shaun Rogers actually spoke to the media this week, and it looks like Mangini’s actually starting to rally the troops a little.
It’s going to be a long season. I know Mangini’s and easy target (not my favorite choice as a coach), but at least it wasn’t a complete blowout where everyone looked clueless.
That being said, Derek Anderson should be the starter for the rest of the season. Sure, he’s probably not a long term solution for any NFL team, but at least he makes things interesting. He’s going to throw picks, but at least he won’t dump screens all day.

An Ugly Win is better than an Ugly Loss.
In prior years, this would be an Ugly Loss and the Bengals would be 0-4 for the year.
So I give credit to an unflappable team.
But this winning way won’t last much longer if they don’t stop the bad long snapping. This is dire.
Why can’t Carson Palmer get more than 5 yds/throw? What happened to the deep ball?
Still, despite this, they can run the ball and make plays when the game is on the line. Kudos to Mike Brown and the Bengals.

Why is it that we blame Brad St. Louis for every kick that is no good? Stop to think and go look at the highlights of those kicks. Shayne Graham kicks the ball on line drives, not high like other kickers. If he doesn’t kick those balls on line drives than he doesn’t get, at least, one of them blocked.

Thomas Paquette –
St. Louis is getting blamed because his snaps are not hitting their target. While he didn’t throw them completely over Huber’s head, they were high none-the-less, giving the opposing line an extra second or two to penetrate.
I will agree that The Grahamchise’s kicks don’t have the extra height other kickers do, however it wouldn’t matter if the line didn’t have that extra time to penetrate.

Watched the game and had notes on some of the above comments:
1. Winning Ugly — well put, richardb, that it’s better than Losing Ugly. The team has been able to pull together when needed this season. Next week in Baltimore will be an interesting challenge/test.
2. Winning FG — looked no good from the back, but the tv cameras are a long distance behind the goalposts while the distance between cannot be judged. So the ball hooked away making it appear “No Good” (as Shannon Sharpe claimed on the CBS late coverage I saw). Replays from different angles showed that the kick was as good as it gets.
3. Bengals Long-Snapper (re: missed kicks) — Brad St. Louis had been a “fairly” steady snapper for 8-9 years with only the bad playoff snap (vs. Pittsburgh, 2006) and the missed XP snap (vs. Denver, 2006) being notables in his long career. When Florida LS James Smith came to town for practices, I thought that St. Louis’ days were over. But we won that contest….only to have two major mess-ups early in the season with the over-the-head snaps of the 1st Qtr Denver FG attempt and the 3rd Qtr Pittsburgh XP attempt, both critical blunders in close games. Many of us thought the Pittsburgh game would be his last as a Bengal, but apparently the team will settle for this sort of malfunction. So it was no surprise today to see the first FG attempt at Cleveland blocked in a large part due to the late hold which in turn was due to a poor snap. If you go back and watch that replay, you will see that Graham had to hesitate in his approach to the ball, and this likely played a role in the block (as did Shaun Rogers’ elephant arms). As for the XP miss that sent the game into OT, the snap again was off, but Graham didn’t seem to hesitate in his approach — the kick was low, and Rogers again got his mitt on it. One thing that should be noted is that a late hold can result in placment/angulation of the ball that is not optimal for the kicker’s needs. In both those cases holder Kevin Huber had to reach farther than expected to field the snap thereby lengthening the time to the placement. There were excuses made by some (e.g., “St. Louis is giving up a lot of size to Rogers, who is over him”), but there was no head beating or body blow being given to St. Louis in that process. St. Louis obviously has lost either confidence or the healthy ability to do his job. It now has become an embarrassment to the team that a move hasn’t been made. I wouldn’t be surprised to see St. Louis gone in the next day, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him stay either. I’m not surprised by any of the confounding decisions made by this team anymore since Mike Brown has had final say.
4. Palmer’s Arm — I don’t think Palmer has any arm trouble as that would have been noted by anyone who saw him throw at summer camp. The Bengals problem is that the receivers are not getting open on the deeper routes. This is due to several factors that include: most teams playing their safeties in two-deep coverage; the Bengals being unable to CONSISTENTLY establish a running threat; the lack of a real receiving threat from the TE or RB position; Palmer’s lack of chemistry with Laveraues Coles to date; the O-Coordinator’s unwillingness to work through 3-or-more WR sets in the early downs. This all adds up to teams doubling and tripling Ochocinco, taking away the deep third from Coles and giving up the 4 – 7 yard patterns to the TEs and RBs. Once Chad is taken out of the game, the D allows short passes to other receivers while focusing on stopping the runs on the early downs. For significant stretches of almost every game, the offense has sputtered into bankruptcy for these reasons. OC Bratkowski states that the Defense is good enough this season that it can win the games, so a ball/clock control Offensive scheme is being favored. As a result, there has been no deep outside passing game while the O appears to be in mothballs every game until the last few minutes when a score is needed and the offense is opened up. It doesn’t take a really bright person to figure out that the coaches don’t trust the offense (or maybe don’t trust the O-Line to keep Palmer from getting killed in a less conservative scheme). Things could get better, though, if Andre Smith arrives and is able to move the pile well in the second half of the season.
4. Kudos to Mike Brown? — Are you out of your mind, richardb? A few wins over marginal teams don’t erase what this guy has done in Hamilton Co. Ohio the past two decades. The main reason I can’t allow myself to celebrate a close win is that I know that it’s all an aberration in the long term direction of this franchise…. unfortunately … as long as this cock is running the roost.

West TX – HA! Mikey boy is a cock, so is his “daughter.”
Cut St. Louis today, if i’m the GM I have three long snappers on flights to Cincy for try outs and ole Brad’s on the street.
I’m sorry, Carson is a part of the problem, I see terrible reads every game, I see floated throws every game, I see balls coming out of his hand early every game.
That said, Brat has to change the way he dictates how the offensive scheme unfolds, YES, we are run first, but that doesn’t mean you can’t run out of three and four WR sets to set up the pass later.
THANK GOODNESS FOR THE D!!!!!!!